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10/05/2001
Being John Malkovich
This has had more written about it than any other movie I've done. It has to be one of the most insane concepts for a movie in the last 10 years.
John Cusack plays Craig Schwartz, a puppeteer who gets a new job in an oddly tiny office. Its on floor 7 1/2 and has ceilings so low, everyone has to hunch completely over to walk.
That only begins the strangeness in this office. Craig finds a tiny door in his office that leads directly to John Malkovich's brain. You get 15 minutes inside Malkovich's head and then fall out onto the New Jersey Turnpike.
Craig introduces the experience to his wife, Lotte (played by a completely ragged looking Cameron Diaz), and a coworker, Maxine played by Katherine Keener, that he has an unexplainably intense lust for. Lotte sees it as a
quasi-religious experience and Maxine sees it as a way to make money.
You then have a decidedly strange love triangle of Craig, Lotte and Maxine plus John Malkovich. This is a triangle because while Craig lusts after Maxine so does Lotte. And Maxine is actually attracted to John Malkovich but only when Craig or especially Lotte has entered his brain.
And you're not even to the halfway point of this movie.
It is such an original and insane concept and movie, it has to be seen to be believed.
The acting is of course top-flight, including an inspired cameo by Charlie Sheen. But one performance stands out above the rest. In a previous review for Irma Vep , I mentioned how it must be difficult for an actor to play themselves. John Malkovich takes that concept to an entirely new level.
In this movie Malkovich just doesn't play himself, but plays the public image of himself. On top of that, he portrays himself getting impersonated by someone else. It sounds complicated but believe this is a movie you have to see at least once.
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